First the good news: the music is by Schubert, the lyrics are by Schiller, the singing is by Thomas Allan, and the accompaniment is by Graham Johnson. Now the bad news: there are not one but two interminable and almost unlistenable ballades included in this program of otherwise wonderful songs. So while most of the songs in this volume of Johnson's Schubert edition are magnificent fusions of words and music -- songs with the longing of Laura am Klavier (D. 388) or the sweetness of Der Jüngling am Bache (D. 638), or the joy ...
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First the good news: the music is by Schubert, the lyrics are by Schiller, the singing is by Thomas Allan, and the accompaniment is by Graham Johnson. Now the bad news: there are not one but two interminable and almost unlistenable ballades included in this program of otherwise wonderful songs. So while most of the songs in this volume of Johnson's Schubert edition are magnificent fusions of words and music -- songs with the longing of Laura am Klavier (D. 388) or the sweetness of Der Jüngling am Bache (D. 638), or the joy of An di Freude (D. 189), or the unappeasable yearning of Sehnsucht (D. 52) -- and while most of the performances are powerfully and passionately sung by the still superb Allan and just about perfectly accompanied by the always superb Johnson, there are still the two ballades, the 20 minutes of gothic gloom in Eine Leichenphantasie (D. 7) and the 16 minutes of medieval flapdoodle in Die Bürgschaft (D. 246). But while between them they account for nearly half the playing time of the...
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